10 Things Your Mother Taught You That Will Help Enhance Your Business

This year’s Mother’s Day is a
bittersweet moment for me. I lost my
mother at the start of 2014. To honor her memory and to celebrate all
the great mothers in the world, let me enumerate some of the wonderful sayings
they have dispensed throughout the years. For what practical purpose? To guide
each entrepreneur how to enhance a business.

1. Stand up straight. Any time you meet with possible clients or investors,
dealing with suppliers or evaluating prospective employees, you need to present
an aura of self-confidence. Good posture, eye contact, and a well-modulated
voice (avoid mumbling, as mom used to say) present you as a competent person
who can be trusted to safeguard an investment.

2. Clean your room. A disorganized life is costly. If an entrepreneur
does not possess an organized computer file system, a method for monitoring
tasks, a clear office space and well-managed long-term strategies, he or she
might continually be harassed and overstressed. Business owners handle a number
of functions, and valuable time lost figuring out where a file is kept is
counter-productive.

3. Share. Competition (a state where competitors cooperate and
work together) can be significantly helpful for entrepreneurs. It could lead
to, based on a certain business sector, savings, enhanced profits or new
high-value clients. Setting up a referral system with another company, ordering
supplies simultaneously with other firms, office space sharing or even pooling
resources and dividing expenses can be done. Look for possible competition pals
at networking events.

4. Stop watching the TV and go to sleep. New
research on sleep is self-evident: entrepreneurs must be efficient, productive,
and healthy. The findings on House of Cards? It is still a fact that watching
another episode will enhance profitability. Hence, quit watching TV and get
enough rest or you might end up having reduced cognitive performance and
alertness – not what you need for managing a 15-hour day.

5. Go out and play. Quite literally, leaving your room for fresh air and
exercise can improve creativity and minimize stress, leading to more
productivity and efficiency at work. At a different level, viewing beyond the
present target audience for clients, thinking outside the box while creating a
new marketing plan or leaving one’s comfort zone on a business venture can
provide excellent returns.

6. Finish your chores before you go out. Every
person has favorite as well as un-favorite tasks. Practice the habit of doing first
tasks you do not like. Later in the day when self-control slackens due to
flagging attention, less discipline will be needed to concentrate on the
remaining tasks.

7. Imitation is the best way to flatter others. Some
mothers utilize this as the common retort to oft-repeated complain, “She’s
copying me,” and during such instances, it can become irritating. But feel free
to imitate any brands admired. Whenever feasible, business owners should reach
out to business leaders they want to emulate and find opportunity to learn from
them (while mentioning their admiration). Entrepreneurs may be more easily
flattered than children when others copy them.

8. Getting bored? By all means, stop being boring. Label this
as “hard to get rid of”. Countless mothers have often said, “Only boring people
get bored,” and this saying hurts. However, nothing can be closer to the truth.
Bored with your marketing or promotional campaigns? Perhaps, your prospects
might also be bored. It is difficult to get out of the dumps; but it is vital
to grab the bull by the horns and win the admiration of more customers.

9. “No one is quite like you.” Being anxious about the
competition can lead business people to forget why they are in business in the
first place. Hence, they could find new inspiration from what their moms often
told them as kids about being special and unique. And more than ever, they
should take heart in realizing and appreciating their uniqueness as a business
in order to finally make the way for overtaking the competition and providing
clients something really worth having.

10. Always say “Thank you”. This Mother’s Day, adults who take
their mothers out for brunch or chat with them online should remember to
appreciate and thank her for all the valuable advice she has given them in
their growing-up years. Remember, that opportunity might not come again.